 "Photo: Emre Kelly")
Text a question to 542542 and Ryan Jones, a senior electrical engineering major at UCF, may be the one to answer it on the other end.
Jones is an agent for KGB, the world's largest independent provider of directory assistance and enhanced information services based in New York, according to the KGB Web site.
"I'm the kind of person who knows a little about a lot of things," Jones said.
Jones took the job answering questions sent to him via text messages because he was looking to earn some extra cash. He said the job offers an incredibly flexible schedule and no boss watching over his every move.
"It's weird and bizarre. At almost every job you meet someone, but at KGB it is possible to never come in contact with someone else except in writing," Jones said.
The agents across the country are given the questions at random depending on who is working at any given time. The same agent who answered the initial question may not answer a follow-up question.
"When we are on our mobile phones, we're doing things, we're busy. If we have a quick question, we'd like a quick and accurate answer," said Bruce Stewart, the CEO of KGB, to the Orlando Sentinel in an article published on Sept. 4.
Jones has seen the good, the bad and the ugly as far as questions go. He deems himself "the finder of the curious" and answers questions ranging from movie times in a specific area to riddles and math puzzles. Jones said he must answer and provide credible Internet sources to back up the information in order to make every person's 99 cents-per-question worth the money.
"From my point of view, he sits on his computer all day doing nothing even though I know in reality he's definitely hard at work," said Jones' girlfriend, Monica Branom, a junior medical laboratory science major. "He gets to look up random things online for work, but it seems like it's fun, too."
Jones said his good memory and pleasure in reading and learning information is what motivates him to answer questions most commonly about homework, song lyrics and cheat codes for video games.
"Ryan is really perfect for this job. He constantly has random facts about all different subjects. He's always willing to help other people understand new things or help someone with homework so, I think he really likes being able to help people all over the country answer questions that are important to them," Branom said.
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